1. Field of the Invention
The invention is related to the field of network communications. In particular, the invention is related to a method and apparatus to determine whether data flow is restricted by a sending node, a receiving node, or by a network.
2. Description of the Related Art
Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) is a communications protocol developed under contract from the U.S. Department of Defense to internetwork dissimilar systems and is the protocol used in a majority of communications between a sender (sending node) and a receiver (receiving node) in a network e.g., the Internet.
The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) provides transport functions, which ensures that the data bytes sent by a sender is received correctly by a receiver at its destination. The Internet Protocol (IP) does not ensure delivery of a complete message; an IP sending layer merely accepts packets from the TCP layer and adds its own header to form a “datagram”. IP contains at least a network address and allows for the routing of messages. Please see Internet Request For Comment (RFC) 793 for more details on TCP, and Internet RFC 791 for more details on IP. TCP/IP is used to route data from the sender to the receiver and to ensure that the receiver correctly receives the data sent by the sender. TCP/IP has not been used to determine whether the sender restricts data flow, whether the receiver restricts data flow, or whether the network restricts data flow. Determining these problems is essential in order to ensure efficient data flow in the network.